Telegram is based on a custom data protocol called MTProto built Nikolai Durov, a mathematician. The app’s secret chats, a separate feature from its ordinary chats, use end-to-end encryption. They cannot be forwarded and can be set to self-destruct after a certain amount of time. One key difference between Telegram’s secret and ordinary chats is that secret chats are not stored in the app’s cloud, which means you can only access messages from their device of origin.
Telegram wants to earn users’ trust by operating as a non-profit, open platform initiative.
“The first thing that we wanted to make clear is that nobody has to trust anybody. We don’t take people’s trust for Telegram for granted,” says Pavel Durov.
Telegram’s founders say the app will remain non-profit because that enables them to avoid commercial and legal pressure. If they eventually need funds to scale up, Telegram will ask for donations from users or make additional services available as in-app purchases. These could include a virtual number that can be used instead of a real mobile number, ensuring more confidentiality.
Telegram’s team wants the messaging app to stand out by offering speed and security, as well as reliance on crowd-sourcing and community-driven efforts.
Telegram, a messaging app created by the reclusive Russian exile Pavel Durov, is suited to running protests for a number of reasons. It allows huge encrypted chat groups, making it easier to organise people, like a slicker version of WhatsApp. And its “channels” allow moderators to disseminate information quickly to large numbers of followers in a way that other messaging services do not; they combine the reach and immediacy of a Twitter feed, and the focus of an email newsletter. The combination of usability and privacy has made the app popular with protestors (it has been adopted by Extinction Rebellion) as well as people standing against authoritarian regimes (in Hong Kong and Iran, as well as Belarus); it is also used by terrorists and criminals. In the past five years, Telegram has grown at a remarkable speed, hitting 60 million users in 2015 and 400 million in April this year. Each day, another 1.5 million people sign up.
“How can you stop these Telegram channels? Can you block them? No. Nobody can,” Lukashenko complained. But if he can’t beat Telegram, he has decided to join it instead. On the Sunday I followed protesters through Minsk, Lukashenko took off from his residence in a helicopter and flew over us. Later, his press service posted video footage, shot from inside the helicopter, to his newly created Telegram channel: the leader, dressed in black and wielding an automatic rifle, surveyed the crowds below; “They’ve scarpered like rats,” he muttered, as he peered down from the windows. Lukashenko was meant to appear uncompromising and in control, but the video was quickly copied to opposition Telegram channels, overlaid with insulting captions, voiceovers and memes, and seen there by far more. At the time of writing, Lukashenko’s channel has 86,000 subscribers, while Nexta Live has almost 2 million, an impressive feat in a country of fewer than 10 million. Last month, Belarusian authorities declared Nexta’s channel and logo to be “extremist materials” in an unsuccessful attempt to scare followers off.
It’s difficult to imagine how Russia’s war in Ukraine would be playing out without Telegram. The messaging app, which last year reached a billion downloads, has turned into the conflict’s digital battle space. It’s an instrumental tool for both governments and a hub of information for citizens on both sides. Ukrainian government officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, rely on the app for everything from rallying global support to disseminating air raid warnings and maps of local bomb shelters. So do both the Russian government and Russian opposition channels, who now find themselves cut off from most mainstream social media. Amateur sleuths and senior military officials alike comb Ukrainian channels 24/7 for fresh details about the latest strikes or military developments.
Wars have unfolded on social media before, but rarely have they been so meticulously documented as in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And Telegram has emerged as its most important social-media platform, offering the world an unfiltered view of the war. The app has been essential in the exodus of more than three million Ukrainian refugees, connecting them to safe routes and aid. Millions of Ukrainians outside the country use it to find news from home, desperately scanning endless feeds of photos and videos for familiar landmarks or faces. So do family members of Russian soldiers.